There were high hopes for Labour’s second coming of a Healey as Chancellor.
John Healey looked like a grown-up with bags of experience at defence and as a Treasury minister in the Blair-Brown years.
So it comes as a blow to find out that in the early run-up to the Budget scheduled for October 28 he is looking at ways of stretching an already overwrought Government balance sheet to meet Andy Burnham’s objectives.
Burnham’s feel-good initiatives, such as the £2 bus fare and VAT cut on energy bills, can almost certainly be funded from the existing headroom. Of more concern is where the big bucks will come from.
The defence investment plan, a legacy of Healey’s last job as defence secretary, is £15bn short over the next four years.
